'Star Trek: Stardust': The Sequel That Became 'Insurrection'

Fans weren't exactly crazy about Star Trek: Insurrection's battle of cosmetology, pitting the citizens of a planet of eternal youth against a race of aliens with saggy, wrinkled skin. Turns out that what we saw on the screen might have been a case of too-many-cooks, starting with one idea, then adding things to it and taking things away from it to the point where it became something else entirely. In Insurrection's case, it might've been better to have started completely over then try to accommodate everyone's demands for the original story, titled Star Trek: Stardust.

TrekWeb breaks down Michael Piller's pitch for the ninth Trek film as a spin on Heart of Darkness. In it, Picard is sent to a distant planet where one of his old Starfleet Academy schoolmates is wildly attacking anyone within the planet's orbit. When Picard arrives he discovers that the planet has incredible rejuvenating powers, and that his friend hasn't gone insane -- he's simply protecting the special place against a Romulan conspiracy to gain control of the planet and its properties. A now-youthful Picard fights alongside his school chum to stop the Romulans.